282 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



Moon took from the person of the escaping governor. At Aca- 

 pulco he found a few Spaniards engaged in trying and condemn- 

 ing a parcel of the unhappy natives. He broke up the court, 

 and sent both judges and prisoners on board his vessel. 



DRAKE INTERRUPTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AT ACAPULCO. 



Before leaving Acapulco, Drake put the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, 

 whom he had taken at the Cape Verds, on board a ship in the 

 harbor, to find his way back to Portugal as best he could. He 

 then sailed four thousand five hundred miles in various direc- 

 tions, till he found himself in a piercingly cold climate, where the 

 meat froze as soon as it was removed from the fire. This was in 

 latitude forty-eight north. So he sailed back again ten degrees 

 and anchored in an excellent harbor on the California coast. 

 This harbor is considered by numerous authorities as the present 

 Bay of San Francisco. The natives, who had been visited but 

 once by Europeans, — under the Portuguese Cabrillo, thirty-seven 

 years before, — had not learned to distrust them, and readily 

 entered into relations of commerce and amity with Drake's 

 party. From the Indians the latter obtained quantities of an 

 herb which they called tabak, and which was undoubtedly tobacco. 

 The Californians soon came to regard the strangers as gods, and 

 did them religious honors. The king resigned to Drake all title 

 to the surrounding country, and offered to become his subject. 

 So he took possession of the crown and dignity of the said ter- 

 ritory in the name and for the use of her majesty the queen. 

 The Californians, we are told, accompanied this act of surrender 



